In the News

  1. November 26, 2024
    • Robert Joseph Taylor

    Unmarried African American friends are more likely than white Americans to form family-like relationships, or surrogate families, where they take care of each other’s needs, says Robert Taylor, professor of social work: “In general, women are closer to their friends than men and there are some differences in terms of friendship contact.”

    WEMU Radio
  2. November 25, 2024
    • Eugenio Weigend Vargas

    “The high number of individuals that have experienced firearm violence in some capacity is alarming and something that should be considered when developing policies and having conversations around immigration,” said Eugenio Weigend Vargas, research fellow at the Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. 

    Border Report
  3. November 25, 2024
    • Ashley Gearhardt

    Drinking Diet Coke signals the body that it wants sugar, but it brings no relief from that craving because no calories come in. “That combination of sweet taste plus caffeine is just something our brain has never really been equipped to handle. … Even if you’re not getting the calories your body expects, the uniqueness of getting that big burst of sweetness and the caffeine is stimulating in the gut,” said Ashley Gearhardt, professor of psychology.

    Inverse
  4. November 25, 2024
    • Photo of Dragan Huterer

    “Einstein’s theory of general relativity describes the motion of massive objects in a gravitational field that they create. … The discovery of the accelerating universe, however, led to suggestions that maybe general relativity needs to be modified,” said Dragan Huterer, professor of physics, who helped track how the structure of the cosmos has grown over the past 11 billion years and found that gravity acts as physicist Albert Einstein predicted it would in his groundbreaking 1915 theory of general relativity.

    Reuters
  5. November 22, 2024
    • Sharon Kardia

    “There are many different reasons why artificial intelligence is important to public health students. AI could help us do a better job of figuring out how we might get in front of the next pandemic, things that are as big or as societally important as that,” said Sharon Kardia, professor of epidemiology and associate dean for education at the School of Public Health.

    Second Wave Michigan
  6. November 22, 2024
    • Photo of Terri Friedline

    Research by Terri Friedline, professor of social work, and colleagues shows that the placement of banks, credit unions and alternative financial services is significantly influenced by changes in a neighborhood’s racial composition: “These insights challenge common misconceptions about the demand for high-cost financial services and underscore the broader impact of financial institutions on community dynamics.”

    DBusiness Magazine
  7. November 22, 2024
    • Scott Greer

    “A secretary and his appointees could increase the difficulty of accessing benefits, reducing the regulations on insurers and providers, and using the waiver process to make it easier for red states to roll back ACA provisions in areas such as Medicaid and harder for blue states to expand the ACA,” said Scott Greer, professor of health management and policy, on the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

    U.S. News & World Report
  8. November 21, 2024
    • Jane Huggins

    “One needs to have expectations that are realistic, and understand that this is new technology. We’re still learning how it works, why it works, when it works, when it doesn’t work, what kind of support it needs,” said Jane Huggins, director of the U-M Direct Brain Interface Laboratory, about brain-computer interfaces that have been used in mapping the inner workings of the brain and augmenting human cognition and motor skills. 

    Digital Trends
  9. November 21, 2024
    • Pranav Malhotra

    Pranav Malhotra, assistant professor of communication and media, says it’s popular to blame social media technologies for society’s ills, but that attitude often absolves consumers from taking a deeper look into what is happening socially and culturally: “I think one of the reasons why it is dangerous to lay the blame exclusively on algorithms is it actually ends up kind of reinforcing a power that these tech companies have.” 

    Michigan Public
  10. November 21, 2024
    • Susan D. Page

    “I am at a complete loss. Everyone is just kind of astounded,” said Susan D. Page, professor of practice in international diplomacy and law, and former United Nations official in Haiti — a nation rocked by so much violence and political infighting that the Federal Aviation Administration has barred U.S. aircraft from flying under 10,000 feet in Haitian airspace to avoid being shot at by gangs.

    The New York Times